BMJ 1997;315:1071-1074 (25 October)

Clinical review

Recent advances: Geriatric medicine

Marco Pahor, associate professor,a William B Applegate, professor a

a Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Tennessee, Memphis, TN 38105, USA

Correspondence to: Dr Pahor


right arrow   Introduction

The primary aims of geriatric medicine are to relieve suffering in old people and to increase the number of years free of disability that they can enjoy. Here we focus on new evidence about the benefits of interventions commonly used in geriatric medicine.

We decided to focus on clinical interventions because of their importance to clinicians. We then selected the interventions that we judged (as editors of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society) to be the more important ones dealt with in the English language medical journals in the past 18-24 months. We carried out thorough Medline searches on each intervention selected. In this article we have chosen a "lifetime" perspective; we have covered new studies whose subjects included middle aged people because the interventions are relevant to disorders related to aging.


right arrow   Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

Their role in dementia and cancer
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are used mainly to control pain . . . [Full text of this article]

Cardiovascular disease
Recent advances

Anti-inflammatory or antiplatelet effects
Importance of inflammation
Balancing risks and benefits

right arrow   Oxidative stress
Vitamin E and dementing illnesses
Antioxidant vitamins and heart disease
Vitamin E and the immune response
Selenium
ß Carotene and vitamin C

right arrow   Hypertension
Antihypertensive treatment and heart disease
Antihypertensive treatment and dementia

right arrow   Exercise programmes

right arrow   Home health care

right arrow   Factors in disability

right arrow   References

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